


Put a Net There to Catch My Fall

by SomeoneAsGoodAsYou (the_wanlorn)



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Chloe KNOWS, F/M, Passive Suicidal Ideation, Passive suicide attempts, Post-Season/Series 3, WIP Big Bang, WIP Big Bang 2019, lucifer doing that thing where you don't want to die necessarily but you don't want to live either, oblivious chloe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 19:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wanlorn/pseuds/SomeoneAsGoodAsYou
Summary: One of the benefits of having a partner who was, for all intents and purposes, unable to be killed was that you didn't have to worry. Bullets, fire, axe-wielding mad-men, none of it mattered when you could send your devil of a partner in first. And he'd always come out unscathed. ...Right?





	Put a Net There to Catch My Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Pay attention to the tags, people! This is your only warning!
> 
> This story has been in the works since sometime in s2 and the end of s3 gave me the perfect opening for it. I've been working on it off and on since then, but major thanks go to the WIP Big Bang people for giving me the oomph I needed to finish!
> 
> And, of course, major huge epic thanks to [Alobear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alobear/pseuds/Alobear) for creating the graphic for me. Like huge thanks. I love it so much!!

It had started with such small, inconsequential things and escalated so slowly that it wasn't until Lucifer was on the ground in front of Chloe — spitting blood, leg bent in the wrong place, gasping that she needed to _leave, fucking leave so it will heal, just go_ — that she even knew anything was wrong.

* * *

It started with a conversation, as most things did. Chloe wanted to know what Lucifer could bring to their partnership — _besides my stunning personality?_ he'd joked, eyes guarded like she was asking for more than just a list of his supernatural talents — now that the truth was out. He'd been quick to answer, like with all her questions now, like opening himself to her was his penance for lying through ommission all those years.

Like he thought that he had no more right to privacy. Like he thought he couldn't say no or obfuscate or anything anymore. She shouldn't take advantage of that, but she had to _know_.

He rattled off a list: speed, flight, strength, on and on. The list was impressive and explained so much about their partnership. One, though, caught her attention and she stopped him.

"Invulnerability?"

"Well, yes, I'm sure you've noticed by now how hard it is to injure me."

"I shot you," she pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest. She knew he didn't lie, that he was being more open than was comfortable for him — all for her sake — but that didn't mean he couldn't backslide and evade the truth still, so she wanted to be sure she really understood what he was saying. "That didn't seem all that hard. And you've been stabbed and nearly strangled and-"

"Yes, yes, alright," he said peevishly, a dark look crossing over his face before his expression cleared. "So I can be injured, but I'm still here, aren't I? I've hardly died from any of that, and I have enhanced healing capabilities."

She waited for a joke about sexual stamina to fall from his lips but nothing came. It was a trend that had come along with the new openness. He hardly ever made overtures at her anymore, which made sense, she supposed. She knew his secret now. She wasn't an alluring way to play at humanity anymore. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

She thought maybe she missed it.

In any case, it seemed pretty clear cut. He could be hurt, but he couldn't die. She felt... foolish. Foolish was the word. All of the times she'd been worried he was going to get himself killed, all of the times he'd drawn attention away from her and onto himself and she'd been angry and grateful and scared, and it was all for nothing. He couldn't die, so being the focus of a killer wasn't a risk to him.

It was good to know, though. Having an invincible partner would come in handy in emergency situations. And she could stop worrying about his safety when one of his crazy stunts went awry.

A consultant who couldn't die was an asset the rest of the precinct would be drooling over, if only they knew. But she was selfish and was keeping him to herself. And only part of that was because no one would believe her if she told them.

* * *

Their working relationship had changed somewhat. Lucifer had known it would after she discovered the truth of him. He'd known that their personal relationship would be, well, dead in the water too. He thought he was prepared for it when Chloe came back after her month-long absence.

After all, she had _come back_, which was more than he'd been expecting.

He had thought he was prepared for her to not... care for him anymore. He had spent eons without anyone caring for him in general, never mind a... Chloe. Now? Now he had friends. He may not have Chloe anymore, and Daniel was still so angry, but there was still Miss Lopez and Linda and it should have been enough.

It should have been enough.

He wasn't prepared for how much it _hurt_ to have physical evidence that she didn't care about him anymore. They had cornered a suspect, and Lucifer hadn't seen the knife. The man was quick, darting forward and getting a good thrust in before Chloe took him down.

"Are you alright?" Chloe asked, as she bundled the suspect into the back of the cruiser. She looked mildly concerned, and his heart fluttered at that even as the pain of the stab wound started to radiate from his upper arm down to his fingertips.

"Nothing I can't heal from," he said through clenched teeth, his good hand going up instinctively to cover the wound as though he could hold his blood inside.

"Good," she said and tossed him a spare shirt from the trunk. "Wrap it up, we need to get him to lockup."

The way his heart went from that hopeful fluttering to crashing through the pit of his stomach had him reeling for a moment. He had thought he might still get _something_, a few moments where he could pretend everything was the way it had been, not... Not outright dismissal.

She truly didn't care anymore. He had become nothing more to her than a tool to be used. He grimaced as he slid into the seat and drew the buckle down. She didn't say anything.

He shouldn't have hoped for more, wanted more. Didn't that always get him in trouble? He knew that once she found out who he truly was, this was the only path they could take. This was the only path anyone could take when they willingly walked beside a monster. They'd become the detective and her all-purpose Devil.

The next time she wanted him to put on a bulletproof vest before going into a hostage situation, he just shot her a cocky grin and said, "I'm the Devil, darling, remember?"

* * *

As the weeks went on, as he tried to be _useful_ so Chloe would have a reason to keep him around, he found himself getting hurt perhaps a bit more often than previously in their partnership. It seemed as though now that she was under the impression he couldn't die — he knew that was how she'd taken his implications and was loathe to correct her — it also meant she was under the impression that he was harder to damage.

And it was true, most of the time, wasn't it? And even if it wasn't true in her presence, well. He had a lot less to lose than the rest of the officers in any given situation. After all, what was left for him up here?

Miss Lopez. Linda. Even Daniel and Mazikeen, he supposed. There were still things here for him, still _people_ that he would miss when he inevitably got killed by some fool's errant bullet. He needed to remember that, to remember that there was more to his life here than Chloe.

Yet each time he was injured and she left him at the ambo with nothing more than a quick "You alright?" he could feel his heart crumbling more. It was a terrible feeling, one that left him short of breath and aching.

He had friends, but he didn't have the one thing he truly wanted. The only thing he truly wanted.

"Hey, Lucifer?" Miss Lopez sounded unnaturally hesitant when she came up to him as he was heading for the vending machines to get a bag of cool ranch puffs. For one horrible second he thought maybe Chloe had told her the truth.

"Yes, Miss Lopez?" he asked, turning around with a smile on his face that hopefully looked natural. She didn't look afraid of him; she looked... worried.

"Can I talk to you for a sec?"

He couldn't fathom any reason why she would want to talk to get him alone, unless it was to-

"Not that I'm not flattered, dear-" he started, only for her to interrupt him with a horrified look on her face.

"Oh my god, no. That is not- No. No way. I would never try to get between you and Chloe like that!" she said, rushing over her words.

"I'm afraid there's nothing for you to get between," he murmured, and he knew his smile must look forced by now.

"I just wanted to check on you, buddy. You've seemed out of sorts lately."

She was watching him closely with those big brown eyes, studying him in a way he didn't like. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but it made him intensely uncomfortable, and he took a step back.

"I assure you, I'm quite alright," he told her, glancing back toward the vending machines. There was nothing truly wrong with him. True, he was still sore from a kick in the ribs he had taken, but that would fade once he was out of range of Chloe. "Now if you'll excuse-"

"Wait." Miss Lopez grabbed his arm, halting him before he could make his escape. "Are you sure? You've been doing some pretty dangerous stuff lately," she said, lowering her voice a little. He needed to escape this conversation. "It's like you don't-"

"I really must go get the Detective a snack," he said, even though it had been himself he was originally going to feed. It was mid-afternoon; he was sure Chloe could use a snack too. "You know how she is when her blood sugar gets low."

Miss Lopez didn't look convinced, but she let go of his arm. "You know you can talk to me, right? I don't know what happened between you and Chloe-"

"Nothing-" he started, then cut himself off. It wasn't strictly true, was it? A lot had happened, just none of it good and none of it something that he could explain to Miss Lopez. "I'll keep that in mind," he said instead and strode off to the vending machines.

* * *

Chloe wasn't sure what she expected when Ella pulled her aside at a crime scene. It definitely wasn't for her to be concerned over Lucifer. Awkward.

"Was he even wearing a vest yesterday?" Ella asked in a whisper, glancing over to the body and Lucifer standing next to it.

And how was she supposed to explain that? She didn't want Ella to worry, but it wasn't like she could force Lucifer into wearing a vest when he didn't need one. And she had to keep reminding herself of that. He didn't need one and he didn't want to mess up the lines of his suit, so of course he wasn't going to wear a vest. Of course it didn't matter if he got shot, not when he was the Devil.

"I-" she started, but Ella talked over her.

"He's been doing that a lot lately, and I kind of can't believe you're just letting him," she said, making Chloe's back stiffen.

She hadn't thought of that, of how it would look if she was just letting Lucifer run around unprotected. How it would seem like she didn't care, like she was a bad coworker, like she was a bad _friend_.

So she forced a chuckle. "Nobody lets Lucifer do anything."

"Sure, but he listens to you more than anyone else."

How did you tell someone that the person they were worried over was invincible, and they were wasting their worry? It wasn't like she could tell Ella that, "oh, by the way, Lucifer's really the Devil, and he can't die so no need to worry!" That wouldn't go over well whether she believed Chloe or not.

"I'll talk to him," Chloe finally said as Lucifer seemed to notice them whispering together and headed over with a grin on his face.

"Promise?" Ella asked, chewing on her bottom lip.

"Promise," Chloe said.

And she had intended to keep that promise. But Lucifer was hard to catch alone lately, and she didn't know if she could just show up at Lux like she had before she knew.

Before she could corner him and tell him that he needed to be more circumspect around Ella, though, disaster struck.

* * *

It had seemed like a good idea in the heat of the moment. He made himself keep pace with Chloe until they were out of sight of the other officers. Then, with a glance to her to make sure it was what she wanted, he was off, tearing up the stairs the suspect had fled to.

He found himself on the roof, watching their suspect — no, no longer a suspect, a killer now — as he ran across the rooftop and leapt to the next one.

Lucifer might have let the chase go on just a touch too long, enjoying the cat and mouse of letting the man think he was getting away before popping up and scaring him in a different direction.

It didn't take long for Lucifer to tire of the game, though it probably felt an eternity to the man he was chasing. Just as Lucifer was closing in, the man took one last desperate jump off the corner of a building. Lucifer stopped and watched as he missed the next roof itself, instead crashing into the fire escape and dangling by one hand before he managed to catch the rail with the other one and drag himself over the edge.

The distance was a bit far — even for him — to jump from a standstill, and they were a bit too far up for Lucifer to be able to expect to escape unharmed if he did miss — there were even odds he would find himself back in Hell if he fell and Chloe was nearby, wasn't that a laugh — but he couldn't come up with a compelling reason _not_ to jump after the man.

So he did.

His body slammed into the fire escape and bounced off, his fingers grasping nothing but air as he fell, the breath knocked out of him. The ground rushed toward him too fast, too fast to open his wings and fly away from this disaster, and he landed with a sickening crunch and the snap of bones echoing somewhere between his ears and his flesh, a sound that was just as much a feeling.

For a moment, he floated and thought that might be it. He would be back in Hell soon enough. He would be where he be-

The pain was sudden and sharp and dragged him back into his body with a gasp and strangled cry. Tears of pain pricked at his eyes, but he refused to let them fall, instead taking careful stock of his body. Breathing felt like fire, and one of his legs was one big throb of pain.

"Lucifer, come on!"

He couldn't answer Chloe, not when he was gasping for breath even as he couldn't pull in a lungful of air without wanting to scream.

"Lucifer?"

His leg was very definitely broken along with at least one of his ribs. He pushed himself into a sitting position, ribs screaming, panting shallowly with the effort of it. Of course he couldn't be lucky enough to be in Hell. Of course he had to _survive_.

He spat out a mouthful of blood almost as an afterthought. He'd bitten his tongue when he hit the ground, and he had to spit out a second mouthful as Chloe came near.

"Leave," he gasped out when she was close enough to hear him. She paused for a moment, then continued toward him. He tried to take a deeper breath so he could yell, but the searing pain in his chest had him curling in on himself and hissing, "Fucking leave so it will heal, just _go_."

"What-" she started, but he forced out a pain-ridden laugh over her.

His tongue — for all it hurt to talk — was too loose in the moment.

"Haven't you figured it out? You make me vulnerable, Detective. Your presence." He gasped for breath again, and black spots danced before his eyes as his ribs protested the movement. "You need to leave so this-" he gestured to his leg with one hand, the other circling around his ribs unconsciously, like if he could just hold them still enough they wouldn't hurt "-will heal."

"I can't just leave you-" she started to argue, but he cut her off.

"You can and you _will_. Now is not the time to start caring again," he said viciously, the pain making him want to lash out. How did humans do this?

She flinched back at his words, already pale but going paler, and he thought he should care more than he did, but everything hurt so much he was having a hard time concentrating on anything else. He was having a hard time fighting the blackness at the edges of his vision. He couldn't pass out in front of her.

"_Go_," he said, putting as much force as he could behind the words, flashing his eyes at her and feeling something in him crumble as she took one step back, then another, then turned and fled back to where she'd handcuffed the suspect to the next building's fire escape.

He managed to pull himself to the side of the building, his leg screaming in pain with every movement, his ribs feeling like they were stabbing through his organs. He propped himself up against the grimy wall, his suit already a loss, and settled in to breathe through the pain and wait.

* * *

Chloe wasn't sure which words were bouncing around her head more as she drove back to the station to drop off their suspect: "you make me vulnerable" or "start caring again."

Did he really think she had ever stopped?

Had she stopped?

Her phone buzzed with a text. It was him, telling her he was going back to Lux and would see her tomorrow.

Tomorrow? He'd been- And he would- Even knowing what he was she couldn't believe he could just _walk off_ a fall like that. Even when she shot him he had-

But she had stuck with him for that, hadn't she. And the next time she had seen him, he had seemed as good as new.

He had been so pale, sitting there on the ground, curled around his ribs, and what if they didn't heal right? What if they punctured a lung or- or-

She needed to see him, needed to know he was actually going to be okay. Needed to — just maybe — apologize and remind him that she did care. How could she not?

* * *

The ride up to the penthouse seemed longer than it had ever been. A part of her dreaded what she was going to find when the elevator doors opened. He had been _so pale_ against the asphalt.

The doors slid open and for the briefest second she didn't see him and her breath caught in her throat. Then she spotted him, at the bar, staring into a tumbler of whiskey, a frown on his face. He wasn't in the same clothes anymore, and his sleeves were rolled up, showing off his forearms and a hint of his bicep. She loved it when he did that, something she'd forgotten in the whole... mess of the past few months.

He turned to the elevator as she stepped out, and for the briefest of seconds, he looked... tired. And sad. A look of bone deep, weary sadness that was gone in a flash, hidden behind an insincere smile.

She hesitated, swallowing, knowing he probably wanted to be alone and she was intruding. Now that she saw he was alright, she should make an excuse and leave him to his drink. But she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong with what he had told her all those months ago; something was wrong about his pained statement earlier, about being vulnerable around her. That there was something he was hiding, still.

That perhaps he had ripped himself open to her questions so thoroughly only so that she wouldn't look any deeper than what he wanted.

"Detective," he said, the wariness in his voice making her heart hurt.

"Hey," she said, taking a few more steps forward, unsure if she was still allowed in his space. "I wanted to make sure you were okay," she added to the question on his face.

He straightened, then, and held his arms out, doing a slow twirl as if for her inspection. "Right as rain, Detective," he told her, and she knew it for the lie it was, even if he clearly didn't.

He might be healed completely already — and she wasn't convinced of that either, not given the way he was slightly favoring his left side — but there was still something wrong. Something off that she wanted — no, _needed_ — to tease out, to fix. That glimpse of sadness on his face had maybe given her a moment where she thought he wanted to be alone, but when had she ever let that stop her? When had she ever left him to his grief when he needed a friend?

"I don't think that's true at all," she said, having made up her mind to stay, and went to lean against the bar next to him.

He looked wounded in a way she couldn't tell if it was fake or not. "I've never lied to you. Point of pride, if you remember."

"I do," she allowed, "but you also talk around the truth."

His lips thinned at that and she wanted to reach out, to touch his cheek, soothe his brow, draw him into a hug until the tension seeped from his bones.

"I'm almost completely healed," he said, his eyes telling her to watch her step. "Only the odd twinge now and then."

She nodded. If he wanted to pretend she was only asking about his physical injuries, then she'd let him do that. They needed to talk anyway and-

Except no, she couldn't leave it at that, not when he thought she didn't care anymore. Not when she had to bite her tongue and clench her fists to stop herself from reaching for him and asking what was _really_ wrong.

"Are you okay besides that?" she asked, her gaze fixed on his as she searched for the truth of it. She thought she knew the answer, but-

"You're not Dr. Linda," he said instead of answering straight, telling her all she needed to know and more. Her face fell for an instant, before she could hide her hurt behind a placid mask, and she knew that he had seen it. He didn't do anything to take it back, though. They had lost so much and it was her fault.

"No," she said and forcibly relaxed her hands by her side, straightening her fingers before flexing them a little to get the stiffness out. Her nails had bitten into her palm, she knew, but she couldn't bring herself to care as she said, "but I still care about you."

He huffed a disbelieving breath at that, looking surprised at himself as the air left his lungs.

"I do," she said stubbornly, refusing to drop her gaze. "I do and that's why I'm here. We need to talk."

"Ah," was all he said, turning back to his whiskey and taking a long drink from it, adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. She dragged her gaze away from his neck as he put the tumbler down. It had been... a while since she'd been in his penthouse, and a while since she'd taken the time to... admire him. And, she supposed, that was part of the problem. She hadn't let things settle back into their normal relationship, she had-

She had been using him like a tool.

The thought had her flinching, a tiny movement she couldn't hide from him. His face fell for an instant before that fake smile was back. Again, she wanted to reach out to him, tell him that it wasn't about him, not the way he thought, but she curled her fingers until her nails were digging into her palms again and let it go.

"I don't think you were being wholly truthful when you said you were vulnerable around me," she said instead. "Were you?"

"Every word I spoke was the truth," he said, and once again she believed him. But that was-

"Come on, Lucifer, that's the most transparent hedging you've ever done," she said. "You may as well be a- a privet."

"Privets are actually very good hedges," he said mildly, and she scowled.

"That's not the point and you know it." She ran a hand through her hair, dragging out her ponytail while she did. "What aren't you telling me, Lucifer?"

"Oh, there's so much I'm not telling you," he said, his eyes darkening, making her swallow with something that wasn't fear at all. "None of which you'd like."

"Try me," she said, meeting his dark gaze with a steely one of her own. Whatever he wanted to throw at her — however he tried to _drive her away_ — she could take it.

He huffed out something that might have been a laugh or might have been a sigh and turned away from her. She gave him a moment — to collect his thoughts, to collect himself, to paste on another smile — before she grabbed his arm and turned him back to her. In that moment she didn't care if she wasn't allowed in his space anymore. She needed him to pay attention.

"Every word may have been the truth," she said, only dropping her hand when he looked at it pointedly. "But that doesn't mean the conclusions I drew from them were correct, were they?"

He didn't say anything but his lips thinned and that was answer enough.

"What did I get wrong?" she asked point blank, but he refused to answer, so she repeated the question only to be met with stony silence.

"I'm not going to let this go," she said, eyeing him. "You can obviously be hurt, unless you were faking to get out of doing paperwork..." She smiled a little, just a quirk of her lips, but he didn't return it. Instead, he studied her with those dark eyes, searching for something that she wasn't sure if he found. "And you can't die because that fall would've killed you otherwise..."

His glance flicked away and back so quickly she almost missed it and she narrowed her eyes. "You can't die, right? You wouldn't let me go around putting you in dangerous situations where you could get _killed_ if you could actually die, right?"

He was still searching her expression. She didn't know what he saw in her eyes, beyond anger and something that felt very much like fear, but he finally said, "Technically, I can't die. I just go back to being trapped in Hell."

She gaped at him, her heart suddenly pounding and her knees feeling weak as she started cataloguing all the times he _almost died_. "Lucifer!" she said when she could talk again. "There's no _technically_ about that!"

He shrugged a little, not looking away, not looking ashamed at his actions, and she felt tears pricking at her eyes. "How _could_ you? Do you have any idea what it would do to me if I got you killed?"

"I would think you would be glad to be shot of me." He was blank-faced as he said it, but she could still feel the layers and months of hurt behind it.

"No. No I would not." She took a deep breath, pulling in her anger. "What else?"

"Isn't that enough?" he asked. There was a confused crinkle between his eyebrows and she couldn't tell if it was because he couldn't understand why she wouldn't be happy to get rid of him or if he couldn't understand why she would care if there was more. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hug him or deck him.

"_What else_?" she spat out. Her fists were clenched harder, fingernails digging deep welts into her palms. She was definitely leaning toward punching him as anger welled in her. How could he have let her do this to him? How could he have let her just... treat him like he was expendable. Like his pain was worth less than the pain of her fellow officers.

"Does it matter?" he asked and she had to take a step back, close her eyes, and blow out a harsh breath before she did something she'd regret.

"It matters to me," she said through her teeth when she thought she could keep her voice steady. "It's my job to keep you-"

"Ah, there we have it, your _job_," he sneered, turning back to his drink and reaching behind the bar to pull up a bottle of whiskey to refill it.

"Don't even start," she spat back. "You know it's not just my job-"

"Do I?" he asked, talking to the bottle instead of her. There was a heavy weight behind his words, like he'd already decided on what was true and nothing could change his mind.

"What. Else?" she said, stepping forward and grabbing his arm in a tight grip, not letting go even as he hissed like she'd touched a bruise. Instead, she jerked him around to face her, not caring when he almost knocked over his tumbler on the bar.

"It's you," he said finally, his voice flat, devoid of emotion.

"What's me?" she asked, digging her fingers in a little more almost unconsciously.

He glanced down at her fingers then back to her. "As I said at the scene, you make me... injurable."

She dropped his arm as thought it burned, casting a horrified look to where her fingers had been digging into his arm. "Injurable," she said. "I make you vulnerable. You can be hurt up here because of me?" She swallowed hard.

"Not up here," he corrected, his other hand coming up to rub at his arm. "Just when you're near."

"Just when I'm..." she breathed out, still staring at his arm. "Why are you still here?"

After a moment of silence he shrugged helplessly at her, that bone-deep weariness crossing his face again. "Lately I've asked myself that every day."

She deserved that. She knew she deserved that, but it still hurt. "Lucifer..." she started softly, then stopped. And narrowed her eyes and said, "Lucifer, you didn't know you were going to fall off that roof, right?"

He was damnably silent.

"Lucifer!" she said, sickness welling in her chest.

"It was a calculated risk," he finally said. "It was a long jump but the little miscreant was getting away and-"

"I don't care if the suspect gets away, I care about you!" She couldn't breathe. How had they reached this point? How could he think-

"Do you?" he asked, his voice so quiet she almost didn't catch it. He turned back to his whiskey as though he couldn't stand to look at her anymore.

"Of course I do," she said, sliding closer to him until she could feel his heat against her side. "That fall could have killed you. Why would you even-"

He gave half a shrug, still staring into his drink, rolling the glass slowly between his palms as the ice clinked together.

The sinking feeling in her stomach was fear, she realized. Intense fear for him, fear that had her hand shaking as she snatched the tumbler out of his hands and put it on the bar with a clunk. She pushed his shoulder until he turned to face her, and his eyes were distant.

She clenched her hand in the front of his shirt, wanting to shake him, wanting to yell and cry and tell him he _mattered_ to her. Instead she forced her fingers to unclench, laying her hand flat against his chest, over his heart.

"If you knew that fall could have killed you, why would you take that chance?"

She could feel his heart pounding in his chest, the rhythm so much like her own. She was focused so completely on her hand that she almost missed his one-shouldered shrug.

"Well it would hardly matter, would it?" he said quietly, not looking at her.

She gasped, her free hand going to her mouth as her other hand clenched in his shirt again. "What does that mean?" she asked, blinking back tears.

"Nothing. It means nothing," he said and tried to turn away, but she wouldn't let him, tightening her grip until he was forced to stop or rip his shirt.

"No, it means something, and I don't think I like what it means," she said, visions of her life without him pushing to the front of her brain, just making the horror and fear worse.

He smiled at her, and the pain and sadness in it took her breath away. "You don't need me, Detective."

They'd had this conversation before, she knew they had. But he clearly needed to hear it again, so she said, "So? Nobody _needs_ you, Lucifer." She realized how that was going to sound too late, and had to tighten her grip again as he tried to turn away, his jaw clenching. "That's the beauty of having friends," she rushed on to say. "They're there not because they need you, not because they have to be, but because they _want_ to be. It's a choice. Do you think if you died we would all just, what? Shrug and move on?"

His eyes cut away.

She wanted to slap him. She wanted to cry and scream and make him _understand_. Instead, she pulled him close and wrapped her arms around him. It took him a moment, but then he was holding her tight — almost too tight — his face buried in her hair as a shudder ran through him.

"You need to understand," she said quietly, turning her head just enough to press a gentle kiss to his hair, "I- We all, all of us, want you around. If you died-"

"Technically-" he started, his voice muffled by her hair, but she cut him off.

"No! If you _died_, none of us would ever get over it, do you understand? _I_ would never get over it. Got it?"

There was a long pause and she realized he was trembling slightly, the barest of shivers running through him. She ran a hand up his back and down again, soothingly stroking as she held him tighter with her other arm.

"I don't- I'm not-" He took a shuddering breath. "Detective, you can't-"

"I love you, you asshole." As soon as she said the words, a spike of panic shot through her. It only worsened when Lucifer immediately tensed, his entire body going hard as a rock as he tried to push away from her. She clung to him, not letting him move away, because she couldn't say this to his face without bursting into tears.

"I love you," she said, her voice thick, "and I get that you don't want that anymore-"

He ripped himself away from her, holding her at arms-length. He looked wild and panicked, his eyes wide, his lips slightly parted, his fingers twitching on her arms. She wanted to take it all back, but he had to know. She couldn't let him go on thinking she didn't care.

"You-" he started, shaking his head. "I don't- You think- How could you possibly think that?"

She blinked at him, confused. "Think... what?"

"That I don't- _Chloe_." He breathed her name like a prayer, like she was a miracle, like he couldn't believe she was real.

It didn't make sense.

"Well. You didn't- I mean, I gave you... openings. And you didn't-" She could feel the blush staining her cheeks and running down the back of her neck, could feel the heat spreading. This was not how the night was supposed to go. She wasn't supposed to be baring her heart to have it stomped on by him yet again.

He looked at a loss as he said, "But I'm- And you're- I don't think you truly understand-"

When he stopped again and didn't seem able to continue, she stepped back away from him, surprising him into dropping his arms — he dropped them like she had burned him — and asked, "What's there to understand?"

"You-" She wasn't imagining that longing look in his eyes as he started talking; she couldn't be. "You know I'm the Devil. You believe me now. It's all come out."

He looked absolutely miserable by the end of it, acting like she had somehow managed to forget that he was the Devil. That even though she had been using his powers like another tool in her arsenal over the past few months, she'd somehow forgotten where those powers came from.

She hadn't, though. She couldn't. She had spent so much time turning what he was over and over in her brain before they reached this point that she knew without thinking about it what her response was.

"Yeah, I do. But you're still you. That didn't change who you are." She took a deep breath. "That didn't make me stop loving you, but you- You pulled away and- I thought-"

She couldn't finish the statement because he was shaking his head slightly and looked like he might shatter if she ended that sentence. He looked delicate, eyes still wide and now wet with moisture. He looked almost panicked again, like this was all too much for him.

Well too bad. Because while he hadn't said outright that he loved her too, he sure had implied it. And that-

That was enough for her.

She stepped forward, and he stepped back. She did it again until he was backed against the bar, where there was no retreating from her, no putting a safe distance between them. When there was no space left between them, when she was as close as she could be to him without physically crawling into his skin, she paused. She looked up at him and licked her lips, just a tiny flick of her tongue, but it was enough to catch his attention.

If anything, his eyes went wider, and when he met her gaze again, he looked like a deer in headlights. He looked like he couldn't believe this was happening to him.

So she went up on her tiptoes, she drew his head down — and he went easily, always going willingly where she lead — and pressed her lips to his.

She kissed him, and his fingers were trembling where they touched the side of her face.

She kissed him and slid her hands up over his shoulders, twining her arms behind his neck.

She kissed him and eased back down onto her heels when the tiptoe became too much, him following her desperately.

She kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and when she finally had to pull away, he whimpered a little, the sound getting caught in his throat before he straightened so fast she almost didn't have time to let go the hold she had around his neck. He looked wild and off-center, his eyes wide and chest heaving and lips reddened.

She slowly, gently, drew his head back down, until their foreheads were touching, until she could feel him in her space and feel-

"Breathe," she said, not unkindly.

His voice was shaky when he admitted, "I don't know what's happening right now."

The laugh she let out was as shaky as his voice, and she said, "You were being an idiot and I'm kissing you anyway."

"Seems like a trend," he said as his heaving chest started to calm.

"That's not an excuse to continue being an idiot," she warned, smiling a little and tilting her head up until she could rub her nose alongside his, a gentle touch that had him gasping slightly. She wondered if anyone had ever done that for him before, if anyone had ever took the time to have this sort of quiet moment with him.

"I would never," he breathed out.

"Uh huh," she said, the doubt in her voice hopefully eclipsed by the way she pressed a soft kiss to the side of his mouth, off-center on purpose. Then another one, on the other side, before she pressed their lips together in another long but gentle kiss.

It was- It was chaste, his lips moving against hers but neither of them trying to deepen it. It was reverent, like she was something precious, like _he_ was something precious to her. She didn't think she'd ever been kissed that way, or ever kissed anyone else that way. No partner had ever been as precious to her as Lucifer was.

Finally, she broke away, and he chased her lips for a moment before straightening. She knew he wasn't going to like what she had to say, so she braced herself for him storming off.

"Look, you need to talk to Linda about this."

"About us?" he asked, blinking at her and looking concerned.

"No- I mean, you can, it's not like it's a secret-" He slumped a little at that, and she wondered what he thought this was. "I mean you have to talk to her about..."

She had to take a deep breath there. They had people at the station to take care of this kind of conversation. She'd never been one of them, had never been able to find the right words or the right tone or the right anything. But this was Lucifer, so she tried.

"It worries me, that you- That you don't seem to care about your safety at all. Do you-" She swallowed. "Do you _want_ to die? Because it seems like you do, a little bit."

He scoffed, but didn't answer for a long moment. She could almost see the second he decided to talk around the truth, the instant he started to smile a devilish smile that he hoped would distract her. She knew him.

"Perhaps _la petite mort_, but-"

The noise he made when she dragged him down for a quick, hard kiss wasn't quite a squeak, but it was close enough to make her smile against his lips before she pulled away.

"Lucifer," she said, her voice as serious as she could make it. "Stop."

He froze so quickly she almost wanted to laugh. But she couldn't quite muster it as she reached out and cupped his cheek. He leaned into her touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment before he focused on her again.

"You have to stop," she said, smiling slightly and letting her thumb trace its way across his cheekbone, "and you have to promise me and you have to just- I don't want to do this without you. Okay? I just don't."

He swallowed, hard, and reached out to her. She turned her face into his hand when he cupped her cheek and kissed his palm.

"I love you," she said again, softly, gently, like it was some secret between them. Like it was something just for them and not for the outside world.

When she turned her head back toward him, nuzzling her cheek into his palm just a bit, he looked... confused. Like he didn't know what to do with her declarations. That was okay. She thought that maybe, this time, they would have time to figure it out.

"I supposed I could talk to Dr. Linda about... some things," he said slowly.

She nodded and dropped her hand. He mirrored her movement and for a long moment they just stood there, staring at each other. Then she felt a slow smile growing across her face, mirrored on Lucifer's.

"I do, you know," he said, "I-" But the words seemed stuck in his throat and her smile just grew. She thought she knew what he was trying to say.

"It's alright," she said, vowing to stop taking him for granted. Vowing to start _paying attention_. "I know. We have time."

* * *

And they did; have time, that is.

Chloe chose to stay the night, to be able to hold him and listen to his nervous jokes about it being a first time for him — _I've never just slept with someone before, you see_, he'd said when she'd looked at him with a raised eyebrow and amused expression.

So when she woke up to nightmares of him falling and falling and hitting the ground, he was there to hold her and calm her racing heart. And when he woke up in the morning with the utter conviction that the previous night had been a dream, she was there to reassure him and kiss his doubts away.

And, for the first time in a long while — for a brief time, before the world could intrude again — nothing was wrong and everything was right.

The End.


End file.
